BY ERIC SINDABI
The University Library Advisory Committee, led by the chairperson Professor Benard Aduda, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academic, Research and Extension visited the Library Department on 13th February, 2024 to familiarise with the Library services and facilities.
BY ERIC SINDABI
Supporting colleagues’ morally, socially and financially is a noble gesture. This was observed during the colourful 20th Annual General Meeting of the Egerton University Library Staff Welfare Association held on December 8th 2023 at the CoELIB Conference Hall.
Patron of the welfare, the University Librarian, Mrs Janegrace Kinyanjui urged the members to consider uplifting the welfare’s objectives to a higher level through ample savings and sincere commitment. She noted that it was important for the members to continue supporting each other because as colleagues, they are like a family.
The patron further encouraged the welfare members to cultivate an avid savings and borrowing culture through the welfare’s savings and credit scheme to uplift the financial sustainability and liquidity status of the welfare. She however cautioned the members against defaulting borrowed money because it was unethical to refuse to repay borrowed money from anyone or public entity.
The Chairperson of the group Mr.George Kira while thanking the patron and members for their continued support for the continuity of the welfare, observed that the activities of the welfare had drastically been affected by the unprecedented financial challenges that gripped members and the University since the year 2020 Covid 19 pandemic devastative effects.
“This peculiarity devastated members and interfered with their financial obligations including contributing to their savings scheme and loans repayments to the welfare’’ said the Chairperson adding that the welfare management discussed with the affected members on a personal level where some pledged to differ their savings contributions and loan repayments.
Thirty members out of the current fifty two graced the occasion while the occasion was also used to host a send-off party to four members who recently retired from the University. Egerton University Staff Welfare Association was mooted in the year 2003 as a social welfare group. Its objectives include offering moral and social support to members while engaging in small scale savings, credit and investment activities.
Members come together to support sick or bereaved members morally and financially and also support and encouragement to members holding social functions like graduation, marriage, ‘house-warming’ and other individual ceremonies. The welfare conducts its financial operations through a savings account at the Egerton University Savings and Credit Cooperation.
The Library Department Risk Management and Audit Committee in its meeting held on 26th September 2023 adopted new Library Risk Management Plan for the financial year 2023-2024 to enhance security of information materials.
The Chairperson of the Committee Rose Okumu said the communication that is in the performance contract of financial year 2023/2024, Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission requires all departments to continue with the implementation process of Bribery and Corruption Risk Assessments from their departmental work processes and the Mitigation Plans developed in the performance Contract of 2022/2023 financial year.
The Library Department bribery and corruption mitigation plan and process has two main risk areas including bribery and corruption and covers the three main divisions of the department namely: Readers Services Division, Technical Services and Administrative Services.
According to the Committee’s report submitted to the University Librarian Mrs. Janegrace Kinyanjui, the Library Department ought to sensitise members of staff on bribery and corruption mitigation measures and activities in accordance with EACC directive and the University’s Ethics and Code of Conduct.
Key areas of concern according to the committee included; inducement to waive a library user from paying overdue fines, inducement to exonerate a library user from paying for a lost or damaged reading material and the temptation to use monies collected from Library Department income generating activities, as well as the loss of books and other library resources through theft.
The Committee recommended that in order to mitigate inducements to waive overdue fines, the rights for waiving overdue fines should be restricted to the In-Charge Reader’s Services Division. Clients must be issued with receipts for payments made while on the other hand collected monies should be banked within 24hours after collection.
To mitigate inducement to exonerate users from paying for lost and damaged books, the committee suggested that, such cases should be reported to the University Librarian’s office promptly, while lost and replaced books should be accompanied with receipts of purchase. The report further recommended that new books upon acquisition should be stamped with the University Library official stamp as they await further processing. Further, security gates and CCTv cameras should be installed and serviced to mitigate loss through theft.
The fast growing use of digital devices to access information has necessitated an intensified user education programme in the University Library Department.
In order to facilitate easy access and maximum use of available electronic resources, the department offers a variety of information literacy training sessions to undergraduate and post-graduate students, academic staff and library staff.
The training programmes include; accessing and retrieving Institutional Repository materials like theses, research papers and University publications. Accessing and retrieving past examination papers database and access and retrieval skills of the electronic books, journals and databases acquired by the University. Other related skills acquired in the training programme include; off-campus access of information, on-line citation methods, publishing in Open Access Journals and research ethics like ant-plagiarism.
In her special library article for the 47th graduation ceremony of the University published in the Egerton University NewsLink the University Librarian Mrs Janegrace Kinyanjui revealed that the department had carried out 33 training sessions during the 2022/2023 financial year where 500 library users had participated. The Librarian added that over twenty e.books databases and journals had recently been acquired while over five hundred theses and dissertations had been uploaded so far on the University’s Institutional Repository platform.
The In-charge Library Systems Mr.Andrew Njuguna during a recent training session, said that the Library Resource Centre section which conducts the information literacy training programmes had increased its performance contract targets in order to meet the user education programmes demand.
“Both undergraduate and post-graduate students are scheduled to undergo the training sessions. Class representatives arrange for trainings in small groups during free time while academic staff undertake training virtually after liaising with Chairpersons of Departments”, said Njuguna, adding that it was also important for the library staff to take part in the training programmes for them to be more familiar with digital library services in order for them to enhance their service delivery to library users.
